Premier Christy Clark vows to stay the course in 2013

Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun12.10.2012

Premier Christy Clark, pictured here at the Liberal Convention in October 2012, said she believes her government’s more than one-year-old Jobs Plan is already paying dividends, and that by staying the course she can outwit both the pundits and the pollsters, the majority of whom have scheduled her for defeat in the May 2013 election.

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VICTORIA — Premier Christy Clark doesn’t hesitate, even for a second, when asked how she can win the next election.

“Keep doing what I’m doing,” she said in a year-end interview Monday, in a tone that stood somewhere between confidence and defiance.

Clark said she believes her government’s more than one-year-old Jobs Plan is already paying dividends, and that by staying the course she can outwit both the pundits and the pollsters, the majority of whom have scheduled her for defeat in the May 2013 election.

“If you are going to be pulled off your path by the critics, you can’t lead your team,” she said.

“People need to know that, in your heart, you believe what you’re doing is right, and that’s why you’re living with the criticism and sticking with it,” she added.

“I think resilience is one of the most important characteristics we can teach our kids.”

For Clark, the past year has been a study in contrasts.

Her B.C. Liberal government remains highly unpopular, consistently trailing the Opposition New Democrats by double digits in the polls, and leaving a near-unanimous impression that the next election will go to the NDP.

But the province is gaining jobs, a recent Ipsos Reid poll showed a majority of people who expressed an opinion think the economy and the province are headed in the right direction, and the upstart B.C. Conservative party has been reduced from an electoral game changer to more of a ballot-box nuisance.

From that, Clark takes the message that the path to victory lies in perseverance.

“I’m confident that when British Columbians face this choice (in the next election), they are going to decide to choose the party that is going to protect their economic interests and their kids’ interests in the long term,” she said.

“Here are the things that we’re going to run on: The first is going to be we have created jobs in the province. The second is, we have invested in making sure British Columbians are first in line for those jobs, because I know there is nothing more important to people than making sure their kids and the next generation of kids have more opportunities than they did,” she said.

“The third thing is making sure that life is as affordable as we can help make it.”

She stressed that this includes keeping taxes in the province as low as possible and competitive with all other Canadian jurisdictions.

Clark agreed that her government’s February budget is “going to be tight” but rejected the suggestion that 2013 will be a repeat of 2009. That year, then-premier Gordon Campbell’s B.C. Liberals tabled a budget with razor-thin margins, only to have the targets blown out of the water in the days immediately after the election.

“It’s not the same. It’s very different,” she said.

“The reason the government couldn’t meet their target was because there was a global financial meltdown unlike anything anybody’s ever seen since the Depression. That’s not where we are today,” she continued.

“We are today in a world of economic turmoil, but we are stable and growing here in British Columbia. We’re doing quite well despite what’s going on around the world,” she added.

“We are experiencing growth, we’re creating jobs, we’re seeing huge investments in liquefied natural gas and in mining because we’ve connected ourselves closely to the Asian markets, which are growing.”

Amid this, Clark acknowledged one major factor she said she has yet to figure out: the gender gap.

“I don’t know and I don’t think anybody knows,” Clark said when asked why a striking majority of women don’t support her in the polls.

But Clark said she is hopeful the stick-to-her guns strategy will work with them, as well.

“I think when we get to election day, women will be asking themselves these questions: Who is going to protect my economic future so that I can keep balancing my household budget so that I don’t have to choose which of my boys gets into hockey? Who is going to make sure that my kids can get an education in the community where I raised them?” she said.

“I also think that women, just like men, are going to look at my record,” she added.

“I think people will look at me, I hope, and say, ‘You know what, the thing about her is maybe I don’t always agree with her but at least she’s real and she says what she thinks.’

“All I can do is be who I am and then British Columbians will make their choice.”

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